Th3 Core

Last month, Birds Aren’t Real adherents even protested outside Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco to demand that the company change its bird logo.

In a post-truth world dominated by online conspiracy theories, young people have coalesced around the effort to thumb their nose at, fight and poke fun at misinformation. It’s Gen Z’s attempt to upend the rabbit hole with absurdism.

“It’s a way to combat troubles in the world that you don’t really have other ways of combating,” said Claire Chronis, 22, a Birds Aren’t Real organizer in Pittsburgh. “My favorite way to describe the organization is fighting lunacy with lunacy.”

“Dealing in the world of misinformation for the past few years, we’ve been really conscious of the line we walk,” [founder Peter McIndo] said. “The idea is meant to be so preposterous, but we make sure nothing we’re saying is too realistic. That’s a consideration with coming out of character.”

A video on his website, purportedly recorded in 1987, shows his team intensively researching to expose "the biggest crime ever perpetrated on the American people."

I know the guy that did this, BTW.

The objective was to demonstrate that you can organize any protest. A few craigslist ads to get a minimum number of paid protesters out, then a bunch of social media posts claiming to get people out for various causes, and a persistent attitude.

You can literally manufacture protests for cheap. ...and from a thousand miles away.

The FBI reported that foreign governments (Russia/Iran/China) are actively doing this in the US, UK, and EU. They even intercepted instructions given to employees providing tips on which different times of day work best when impersonating MAGA supporters vs LGBT supporters vs whichever demographic.

Often they'll piggyback on existing movements, and then recruit/pay people online to amplify violence at these protests. They want to sow as much discontent as possible. Whether it's the Trump Jan 6th riot, or the BLM protests/riots - there are entire buildings full of people spending their entire day encouraging violence, shipping weapons to protesters, and guiding them to inflict the maximum amount of damage.

Sometimes they have very very specific targets. In 2016, they were VERY active in the US election and the Brexit referendum - these were widely reported. ...but lesser known are, for example, their activity in 2011 in Germany after Fukushima, where they helped amplify a mass panic against nuclear power that ultimately drove German dependence on Russian gas; or the 2020 BLM protests, where they helped amplify and organize more violent groups of protesters.

They always support the extremes - the most violent. Whether it's extreme supporters of Trump or Bernie, Orban, or Corbyn, they aim to divide and disrupt. They did this in Ukraine to HUGE success prior to formally supporting the "independence" movement. Polarizing the people, destroying civility and dialogue, and amplifying distrust in institutions (SCOTUS/Congress/President/Law Enforcement/Banks) is an important step to ripping a country apart.

Divide and conquer. ...and they are GOOD at it. ...and they are everywhere here on Reddit.

EDIT: The Mods removed this entire post. Figures.